Welcome Back, GRETINA

Credit: Image by Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne scientists will be studying the physics of unusual atomic nuclei with this world-class gamma ray spectrometer.

"GRETINA is one of the first systems to use gamma-ray energy tracking to trace the path of gamma rays emitted from nuclear reactions through crystals, resulting in unprecedented energy resolution and efficiency,” said Zhu, user liaison for the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) – a DOE Office of Science User Facility for the study of nuclear physics. “This technology has tremendous potential for high-sensitivity imaging, which has applications in medical diagnostics and treatments, homeland security — such as cargo inspections — and, of course, nuclear physics.”

Coupled with Gammasphere, Argonne will have complementary instruments that allow scientists to see what a nucleus looks like in exquisite detail, not by imaging but by studying the gamma rays — high-energy light particles — that provide an indirect view of the shapes of the nucleus. Gammasphere, the world’s most powerful spectrometer for nuclear structure research, is especially useful for collecting gamma ray data created by the fusion of heavy ions. However, unlike Gammasphere, GRETINA can merge the partial energies of a gamma ray that scatters between two crystals, increasing its sensitivity. They’re a powerful pair.

One of the team’s pursuits is to understand the occurrence and physics of “super deformation” in nuclei. Scientists know that nuclei can go into very elongated modes in the fission process, but now they also know there are ways to make them super-elongated with input of energy and angular momentum as well.

“GRETINA will enable us to pin down where these super-deformed modes exist and how they transition into normal nuclear shapes,” said Carpenter, who leads Gammasphere research. “With this instrument, we’re able to study the structure and stability of nuclei under various conditions. The new capabilities provided by gamma-ray tracking give us large gains in sensitivity for a large number of experiments, particularly those aimed at nuclei far from beta stability.”

GRETINA is about the size of a large SUV. Like Gammasphere, it is built from large crystals of hyper-pure germanium, an element with chemical properties similar to those of carbon, silicon, tin and lead. The instrument consists of 28 highly segmented coaxial germanium crystals, each divided into 36 electrically isolated elements.

GRETINA combines four crystals in a single cryostat, enabling the device to maintain an extremely low temperature to form a quad-crystal module. This elegant configuration allows GRETINA to detect gamma rays from the decay of nuclei. Nuclear physicists can then infer the size and shape of the nuclei based on the energies of the emitted gamma rays.

“Of all the detectors we can use to measure gamma rays, germanium has by far the best energy resolution,” Zhu said, adding that Gammasphere and GRETINA combine to produce an impressively clear picture.

This is GRETINA’s second campaign at Argonne, where it will remain for between 12 and 18 months. It was located at Argonne’s ATLAS from late 2013 to June 2015 and contributed to a number of findings, including one that confirmed that a particular nucleus is shaped like a pear.

Before its return to Argonne, GRETINA was at Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. For now, it will be be used in conjunction with Argonne’s Fragment Mass Analyzer, where it will enable studies of nuclei at or near the proton drip line and along the rp process, one of the pathways through which stars synthesize heavier elements.

By using GRETINA in combination with the Fragment Mass Analyzer, Argonne scientists plan to look at nuclei that are at the edge of stability where the number of protons and neutrons is barely enough to keep them close enough to form a nucleus. In nuclear physics, this is known as the drip line.

“We want to go to the point where nuclei no longer exist,” Carpenter said, “so we can determine the shapes at the drip line and compare what we observe to theoretical models. We want to understand the structure of nuclei up to the point where they are ready to essentially fall apart.”

DOE’s Office of Science funds this research.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit the Office of Science website.

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